Tanya Valentin's Blog, page 9

Unlearning Lesson One – Your Agreements

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In our lives we all make unconscious agreements with ourselves, others and life about who we are and what we are capable of.  

This process of “agreement-making” starts from when we are very young and these agreements become the foundation from which we create our lives. Our agreements determine the actions or inaction that we will take, the relationships we enter into and what we think we are capable of. Until we make these unconscious agreements conscious, we will continue to repeat the same behaviours over and over again in vain, hoping for a different result.

This can cause us to feel stuck, frustrated, depressed, angry and even bitter with ourselves and how our lives have turned out. If we want to create positive change in our lives we have to choose positive new actions.

The first step in creating this change is to become aware of our “shoulds”, “musts” and “have to’s” – the commitments we made before we had the gift of discernment. We then need to consciously decide which of these we would like to keep and which of these we would like to rewrite for ourselves. The final step is to integrate and maintain our new agreements (which is best done with the help of a mentor to keep us accountable).

In this episode, I talk about my old agreements and the new commitments I have chosen to replace them with.  Perhaps we have some in common?

This is a good opportunity for you to reflect on your unconscious agreements and unlearn alongside me.

Download your copy of my 5 Commitments https://tanyavalentin.co/5commitments

Book a FREE 30-minute Clarity Call: https://tanyavalentin.co/claritycall

To join The Feminine School of Unlearning go to: https://members.thefeminineschoolofunlearning.com

Buy When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains: https://tanyavalentin.co/amazon

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How To Own Your Voice With Melanie Wood

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In today’s episode, I am joined by internationally acclaimed speaking coach, Melanie Wood.

Melanie is an International Communication and Leadership Speaker, Best-selling Author and works with Business Owners, Entrepreneurs, Managers and Leaders to step up, step out and lead with speaking and communication. Melanie is on a mission to bring out the heart and authenticity of the speaker and communicator that supports growth and transformation. Melanie believes everyone has a voice and story to share, with a nurturing and supportive environment to be heard and understood. Melanie provides a personal heart-focused approach to empower, inspire and transform her clients’ lives, work and businesses. This creates an impact and ripple effect in the world.  Melanie has been featured in the World media including FOX, NBC, CBS, The Boston Herald, and NY Headline as the leading speaking coach Empowering women to have a voice in this world.

Melanie shared with us, her inspiring story of how she overcame an abusive marriage, moved across the world from Scotland to Australia to become a woman who knows who she is and owns her voice.

Some of the things we chat about are:How she found the strength to leave her abusive marriage.How she found spirituality after being a sceptic.How she learned to trust herself and own her voice.Her personal growth journey and how you can apply her wisdom to your own life.Melanie also shares with us her FREE 15 Steps To Make Your Public Speaking A Success Download Your FREE 15 Steps Public Speaking to Success PDF

You can connect with Melanie:

Gain Clarity and Confidence in our Communication Community – Join HereBook a 30-minute Find Your Voice Strategy call Here with Melanie.Grab your copy of the Best Selling Change Makers book – Here for only $1.35 AUS: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B08JK95LV9

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/melaniewoodspeakingstyles/Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/melanie.wood_/Website – speakingstyles.com.au

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As a Midlife Mentor, I help soul led, Midlife Mums who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a woman can reconnect with what is truly important to you and can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Do you want to find out how you can step out of the shadow of others expectations of you? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

The post How To Own Your Voice With Melanie Wood appeared first on Tanya Valentin l.

Dear Past Self – I Forgive You…

One of the certainties that you will encounter as you work on healing yourself and move further and further outside of your comfort zone is that you will encounter your past self – A LOT!

A few years ago, I read a Facebook Meme that said “My goal as a Mother: Raise children that don’t have to recover from their childhood.”

This seemed so inspiring at the time when I read it, that I grasped onto this meme and filed it in my heart. I thought “Yes, I am that mother! I will give my children that childhood that they don’t have to recover from!”

And then I failed, and I felt like the worst mother ever…

I know that this resonates with a lot of moms. When I posted about this on Instagram recently, so many women reached out to tell me their stories.

To be human is to make mistakes and fail – often. This also means that you will be triggered by your past self’s mistakes and failings.

However, when I look at the goal, I set myself upon reading the above meme now I realised what an impossible expectation this was. I was operating from my Wounded Mother. Her nature is to control and take responsibility for else’s worries on as if they were her own.

None of us are perfect and we all make mistakes as parents. As mothers we say things we shouldn’t and argue with our partners. We do things that we wish we could take back. We all carry things from our past into our present from our childhoods. This is just how life works.

For example:

And even if you did everything perfectly there are so many outside forces outside of your parenting that you can’t control.

You can’t control what goes on at school, whether other children will pick on your children, the friends they will choose, what your parents, siblings, partners, their teachers or even strangers will say or do.

It is impossible to control whether or not your children are born with genetic challenges and how this will affect their lives.

Nor can you control how your children experience their life and the conclusions and decisions that this will lead them to make.

None of this is within our control. But yet, we try so hard to control everything and when we can’t, we beat ourselves up about what a shitty mother we are.

An opportunity to learn

Being confronted by a past mistake may feel like something to be ashamed of, however, is also an opportunity to learn. It is an invitation for introspection and trust rebuilding with yourself, as you travel along the personal growth journey, we call life. This ultimately builds wisdom and resilience.

Let’s face it, present you did not get here out of thin air. This current version of you was born out of past versions of yourself. If she is anything like my past self, she would have made sooo many mistakes along the way.

From personal experience, I know how these mistakes can so easily morph into beliefs that we hold onto as truths. Truths about ourselves then lead to self-protective behaviour patterns that we repeat over and over again.

The thing is, even if you have done the work, you still have to be vigilant with yourself and your thoughts. Our past selves and the beliefs she created can become deeply ingrained in our subconscious. If we are not careful, we can so easily slip into old familiar but unhealthy behaviours.

This behaviour is more likely to occur when we are feeling challenged, overwhelmed or exhausted. This cuts off our connection to the logical part of the brain that makes sensible decisions.

Our trust accounts with ourselves

Just as we can break trust with other people, so can we break trust with ourselves. This is super easy to do because we often have poor boundaries about our commitments to ourselves. I don’t know about you, but I find it far easier to let myself down than disappoint someone else.

Think about trust as a currency. We create trust accounts in all our relationships, including the one that we have with ourselves. When we act in a way that builds trust, such as keeping a commitment, we make a deposit into the account. If we act in a way that breaks trust, such as not meeting the commitment, we make a withdrawal from our trust bank.

Many of us without realising it, have made too many withdrawals from our account and not enough deposits. This means that our trust accounts with ourselves can become severely overdrawn.

It is little wonder that we find it so difficult to trust ourselves and our intuition.

The Nameless Maiden

The beliefs and behaviours that are the hardest to change come from our experiences from when we were in our Maiden Archetype as a child. This impressionable Nameless Maiden self, learned from a very young age to trust her caregivers’ judgement over her own.

As infants, we learn that in order to survive we have to please our parents. This is often taught and reinforced through punishment and reward. This is one of the first of many withdrawals from our trust account with ourselves.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

If we didn’t listen to our parents’ instructions or made a mistake, we may have learned that bad things happen when we trust our own judgement.

We might have learned that if we listen to others and follow “the rules” then we receive praise, approval and love.

Hence, we were programmed to believe that if we “follow the crowd” we will be safe and accepted. The result is that we shut down our inner guidance system and trust ourselves less and less. Eventually, we develop learnt helplessness and leave all of the decision making to others.

As we grow older and venture into the world, we are provided with opportunities to rebuild trust with ourselves and to flex our intuitive muscles. This opportunity may have prompted us to take risks which may have ended in making mistakes and failing.

If we were taught that these “learning injuries” were “bad” as a child, this can trigger our old beliefs which stem from the wounded Maiden. Unfortunately, we often revert back to this belief. We may revert to this way of thinking even if we have been working to see our mistakes as part of the learning journey. Some of these old, wounded ways of thinking run deep!

Shark Music

As I mentioned in my introduction, this behaviour is always self-protective. When we have experienced something that resulted in extreme feelings of fear, shame and trauma this becomes hardwired into our brain connections.

These experiences are often punctuated by sensations of feeling trapped and powerless. Our bodies and brains want to protect us from another occurrence and so when we sense a similar threat – Hello self-protective behaviour! (Or as I call it in my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains, Shark Music.) Shark Music is the unconscious programming that is operating in the background that signals to our nervous system that we are unsafe and puts us into fight, flight or freeze mode.

So how do we go about forgiving our past selves their mistakes and freeing ourselves from our Shark Music?

Firstly, self-awareness is key.

Ask yourself:

“What things trigger my “Shark Music”?

“How do I feel when I hear my Shark Music?

“Where do I feel it in my body?”

When I hear my Shark Music, I can feel it in my stomach, and it knots up. My jaw tenses and I feel the tension all through my face. I experience a rush of adrenaline followed by nausea, exhaustion and brain fog.

Once you notice the sensation in your body, name the emotions that come up for you.

Allow yourself to sit with your emotions until they start to lift.

Then ask yourself, “What past event am I projecting into my present?” Allow the answers to come to you.

Recently, my Shark Music started playing really loudly before my appointment with my accountant. When I did the exercise above, I realised that I was projecting a past business failure onto this current situation.

Forgiving Our Past Selves

The person that we find the hardest to forgive is usually ourselves. We are also the person who needs our forgiveness the most. It is human nature to hold onto old mistakes for years, even decades and use these mistakes as an arsenal for self-attack as if we are living in that moment again.

When we use the introspection power of our Wild Woman, we can recognise that this is merely a past self that needs forgiveness and love. We can let go of the hurt if we choose while only keeping are the lessons from our learning injuries.

Rebuilding trust is what comes after forgiveness. It is the action part of the healing process. As with any relationship, learning to trust yourself after you have let yourself down is a gradual process of healing and forgiveness.

Tanya Valentin – When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains

We can spend a lifetime, feeling stuck, waiting for someone else to show us compassion and forgiveness. Or we can choose to give it to ourselves and move on with our lives.

This is an excellent invitation for us to reparent ourselves through the embodiment of our inner own Mother. One of the most powerful ways to do this is through mirror work.

Try this simple but powerful self-forgiveness exercise:Take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror.Gaze into your own eyes with compassion as if you were looking into the eyes of a child.With love and kindness, say out loud: “I see you, (insert your name). Thank you, I know that you did the best that you could. I love you and I’m sorry. I forgive you and I trust you.”Questions for your journal:What things trigger your “Shark Music”?How do you feel your “Shark Music” in your body?What past self learning injuries do you need to forgive yourself for?

Reading is educational; however it is only when we put some of what we have read into practice that we start to heal. A new feature of this blog for 2022 is to give you something to take away and reflect on.

Did you find this blog post helpful? Please leave me a comment.

If you would like to rebuild your sense of trust in yourself join the Learn to Trust Yourself Again 5 Day Challenge and restore your self-confidence.

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Moving From Confusion and Overwhelm to Self-Trust and Confidence

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Let me know if this is you?

You know that you want more?

More purpose, meaning, more clarity, more enlightenment.  And so you are reading all the books, going to the webinars, workshops, coaching, studying religions… And you are just feeling more confused than ever!

My guest Adele Wang shares her story of moving from spiritual confusion and overwhelm to self-trust, attunement and confidence.

Adele is a leading mentor for professionals struggling with stress and craving lives of more purpose, meaning and connection. As a spiritual teacher, speaker and energy healer, she has helped hundreds of leaders around the world reduce anxiety and attract more fulfilling careers and relationships. She is a frequent speaker on consciousness, business psychology and personal development.

As the host of the “All Things Human” podcast, Adele is the only wisdom teacher who combines the power of storytelling with mindset, embodiment and spiritual practices to help people create success at a time when there’s more change and uncertainty than ever. For more information, visit http://www.safehavenhealing.net. She has a MS in Industrial Relations and a BA in Economics from the University of Wisconsin. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her family, a puppy and two cats.

Adele Wang Mentor, Speaker, Author, Certified Energy Healer Host of the All Things Human podcast http://www.safehavenhealing.net

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As an Archetype Mentor, I help Midlife Mums who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a woman can reconnect with what is truly important to you and can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Do you want to find out how you can step out of the shadow of others expectations of you? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

The post Moving From Confusion and Overwhelm to Self-Trust and Confidence appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Donkey Shaped Miracles with Rachel Anne Ridge

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Transcript for this Episode Part Two

To me, nothing says Christmas like the image of Mary riding on the back of a donkey to Bethlem to give birth to baby Jesus. Our guest on this week’s podcast episode has a beautiful connection to a very special donkey – Flash, a stray donkey that appeared to her and her husband one cold night during a time of uncertainty and despair in their lives.

This chance encounter was the start of a beautiful spiritual journey for Rachel Anne Ridge, who decided to take a leap of faith and follow the path that had been laid out before her.  Through the mirror that was her relationship with Flash, Rachel started to develop her relationship with herself through a new perspective.  This lead to a career as an author of several books, a thriving career as an artist and a calling to coach other creative people to lead a life of purpose and joy.

Rachel Anne Ridge is an author, artist, speaker, and creative coach in Texas. Aided by a stray donkey who arrived on her doorstep and never left, Rachel boot-strapped her art and design business through the Great Recession in the US, all while raising a family and honing her story-telling gift. As an author and speaker, she delights audiences with humour and insight; as a creative coach she helps clients discover their passions, find their creative niches, and launch whole-hearted businesses. Mom to three adult children, and two rescue donkeys. Nana to five.

Find her online at rachelanneridge.com

Twitter: @rachelanneridge

IG: @rachelanneridge

FB: @rachelanneridgecreative

You can follow Flash and Henry:

IG: @flashandhenry

FB: @flashthedonkey

Twitter: @flashthedonkey

As an Archetype Mentor, I help Midlife Mums who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a woman can reconnect with what is truly important to you and can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Do you want to find out how you can step out the shadow of others expectations of you? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

The post Donkey Shaped Miracles with Rachel Anne Ridge appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Why Rest Is An Important Part Of Personal Growth

As the year draws to a close, many of us have the opportunity to take a brief pause.

In the past, I have resisted taking a break. I have worried that if I stopped to rest, I would lose the momentum I have worked so hard to achieve and all my efforts would be for nothing. There always seems to be more to do and my list can sometimes feel endless! However, my inner Wise Woman self reminded me this year, that rest is part of growth.

Rest is part of healing our wounded selves.

Healing is actually learning how to “be”, rather than how to “do”. How to be within our bodies. How to leave the ego (thinking) mind to actually experience the present moment. As we learn to do this, we learn to feel and integrate new ways of being into our body. This requires lots of rest and self care.

The Holistic Psychologist

How Our Shadow Archetypes Influence Our Attitudes Towards Growth and Rest

In my previous blog How to Overcome Toxic Self-Criticism, I shared with you how we can get caught up in the Wounded Warrior or the Selfless Mother Archetypes.

The Wounded Warrior feels compelled to continuously be on the hunt. Consumed with ticking things off of her never-ending “to-do list” she strives to reach the next goal, the next milestone.

Although this can be true for a work goal, I have also found this to be true when related to our journey of personal growth. We can so easily fall into the habit of constant self-improvement, never stopping to celebrate our accomplishments or to acknowledge ourselves for how far we have come. This activates feelings of not being “enough” in us, or that we need validation from an outside source to “complete us”. We do this instead of seeing all the ways that we are already whole and worthy.

The Selfless Mother is filled with her need to compete with other mothers to prove her worth. She is consumed with the need to control and take on everyone else’s problems as if they were her own. The Selfless Mother loses herself in the constant serving of others. She is so busy “doing” that she forgets who she is as a human “being”, worthy of her own love and care.

For women who identify strongly with these shadow archetypes, rest can be very challenging. “Doing” is where they receive the validation of their worth.

Photo by Yan Krukov on Pexels.comSeasons and Cycles of Growth and Rest

Linear goal setting is a model of growth and development that has been taught to us through the masculine dominant lens of our culture. The Wounded Warrior Archetype is often a learnt manifestation of this masculine way of doing things. This way of thinking is helpful for setting short term goals. However, as women and in the healthy embodiment of our Mother Archetype, it is our nature to be in touch with our natural cycles. A woman’s way is to observe the spring, summer, autumn and winter of all things.

The feminine way to observe growth is to recognise that at any given moment we are:

Cultivating new tender shoots such as ideas, or sparks of inspiration (spring). Parts of ourselves and our lives that are flourishing and bountiful (summer). Aspects of ourselves and our lives are coming to an end (autumn).Parts of ourselves are undergoing a death or need to be dormant (winter).Rest = Growth

The best way that I can explain Rest = Growth is through the example of growth to our physical body when we are trying to reach a fitness goal.

According to sports science experts, rest is just as important to our physical bodies as training. There is a direct correlation between how much you rest between training days and how well you perform in the sports field.

During each training session your body gets ‘damaged’. Rest, and especially sleep, allows your body time to repair this damage. This means that if you don’t take enough rest after training, your body cannot fully recuperate, leading to an ongoing weakening and deterioration of your body tissues. But there is another reason why rest is crucial for athletes. When your body has fully repaired itself from training it doesn’t stop there. In order to prepare for stresses in the future, it will become a little stronger than before. This process is called overcompensation.

http://www.asics.com

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.comThe Growth of Our Brains, Emotions and Souls Need Rest Too

Similarly, our brains, our emotions and our souls have been “training” hard over the past year. It is crucial to our ongoing growth and development to give ourselves some much needed time to rest and recover. We need time for our learning to settle, integrate and for new connections which have been formed to be strengthened. When we are making significant shifts to our thoughts and beliefs our brains are literally rewiring and rebuilding themselves. Our brains are working so super hard that it would stand to reason that we may need rest to give our brains the opportunity to recover.

By allowing ourselves this time of rest, we make space for more ideas and creativity to flow. We build our resilience and we can return to our goals with renewed strength and stamina in the new year.

As mums, we would have witnessed a similar thing happening for our children at various stages of their development. This is especially true for children in the early childhood and adolescent years, where their rapid growth is met with the need for more sleep.

Perimenopause, often referred to as our second puberty, is a time when our bodies, brains and souls go through significant reconstruction. As midlife women, we naturally need more rest in order to recalibrate and preserve our holistic wellbeing.

Along with all the growth and healing, remember to give yourself time for integration, which is a fancy word for “allowing shit to settle”. It looks like doing nothing. This nothing is necessary.

Emily McDowell

Allowing Yourself Time to Rest

Okay, so I have convinced you of the importance of rest, but how do you do it?

How do you switch off and allow yourself to take some well-deserved R&R?

The answer lies in the embodiment of your inner Queen.

Here is my three-step plan for being more Queenly this festive season:Step one – Recognising your worth – Queen’s know that they are worthy of rest and relaxation.Gently tell yourself that by investing in some downtime for yourself, you will be a better mum, boss, employee etc.Remind yourself that your worth is not tied to how productive you are.Remember, you are allowed to enjoy your life and to have fun and you don’t need anyone else’s permission. You can give permission to yourself!Step two – Make a plan.This may sound a bit contradictory to resting, but make a plan.Do a brain-dump and create a list of priorities that absolutely need to be completed before you can rest. Set yourself a deadline of when these will be completed by. (Use my handy tool to help you with this process)Look at your task list and deadlines and ask yourself, “Are the expectations that I set for myself realistic?” and “What is the worst thing that would happen if I didn’t do everything on this list?”Adjust your list accordingly and your expectations accordingly. Remember that a Queen has a team – you can ask for help and delegate.Create a “switching off” ritual that signals to your brain and your nervous system that you finished with your work for the year and you are now entering “rest mode”.Think about all the things that bring you joy and create a plan for how you will do some of these things in your rest period. (According to relaxation expert Professor Mark Cropley, if we do not plan for our relaxation we spend our leisure time filling it with jobs.)

You often feel tired. Not because you are doing too much, but because you do too little of what lights a fire inside your

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Step three – Create boundaries and keep your commitments to yourselfCreate boundaries around your rest and relaxation. The easiest why to do this is by visually removing things that remind you of work while you are on your break.Pack away your computer and any books, files, devices that remind you of work.Set your emails to auto-respond and log out of your email accounts.If you use your social media for business, create a post letting your community know that you are taking a break and wishing them a lovely break too. Log out of your accounts or turn off the notifications from your social media on your phone.Practice saying “No” to family and friends to things that do not align with how you want to spend your break.Remember, it is going to feel a bit difficult at first to do this, but it will get easier the more that you practice this.Keep reminding yourself that you are allowed to take time off to meet your own needs. Celebrate the beautiful calm, relaxed and energised Queen you are. Ready to take on the world with renewed passion and energy once your break is over.

If in doubt repeat the following Affirmation: It is safe for me to rest and relax, it is my turn to give myself all the love and care I give to others.

If you resonated with the Wounded Warrior or the Selfless Mother Archetype and would like to know more about how you can heal these archetypes and the other Shadow Archetypes for yourself, take my FREE Masterclass series.You can register for this HERE

As an Archetype Mentor, I support Midlife Mums who are navigating change in their lives, so that you as a woman, can reconnect with what is truly important to you. Let me show you how can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life YOU want. 

Would you like to find out more about how you can heal your Shadow Archetypes? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

The post Why Rest Is An Important Part Of Personal Growth appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

How To Overcome Toxic Self-Criticism

In the past that I have suffered from toxic self-criticism. Toxic self-criticism is when how we judge ourselves becomes extremely harmful to our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing.

I don’t know about you but, as the year comes to an end I have become super critical of myself for all the goals I didn’t achieve in 2021. Now, this is crazy as I actually achieved a lot. However, this doesn’t stop my internal judge, my inner critic from spinning out into overdrive.

Is it just me or have you noticed that this has happened to you?

In this blog, I guide you (and myself – this is constant work ) with ways to overcome toxic self-criticism. I will explore the Shadow Archetypes which influence us to judge ourselves so harshly. I will also support you with ways to rebalance the influence of these Shadow Archetypes with life-enriching qualities of other Feminine Archetypes.

Why are we so critical of ourselves?

It is an innate behaviour for us to judge ourselves harshly. Our brains have a natural bias to negativity.

However, our cultural programming has a lot to do with this too.

Our values, our work ethic and even our tendency to overcommit and create unrealistic expectations for ourselves are formed from a very young age. This is shaped by witnessing these types of behaviours in our parents and what they communicated to us about their expectations of us. This is reinforced by the evidence we find in the cultural messaging we receive from others. This could be through conversations, movies and television we watched, advertising, the news and social media. When we feel that we are not living up to the expectations of others, we can internalise this and our inner judge steps in to give us criticism.

For women, many of our people-pleasing, overcommitting tendencies are a “mother wound”. A mother wound is a self-damaging/self-protecting behaviour that we have inherited from our own mother and the culture we were raised in.

This is also true when we consider the unrealistic expectations about how we should feel this time of the year. All around us Christmas carols are playing. Their message to us is to “be of good cheer” or that it is “the happiest time of the year”. We interpret this to mean that we should be happy and cheery at this time of the year. The messaging implies that if we don’t feel like this, then there is something wrong with us.

However, for many of us, this is the busiest, most stressed time of the year as we juggle family commitments, end of year functions for us and our kids, Christmas shopping, work deadlines, budgets… The list goes on!

Toxic self-criticism and burnout risk

Most of us have just lived a super emotional stressful year with covid lockdowns, vaccine mandates and emotional upheavals. By this time of the year, many of us are already exhausted. The month of December can feel like the last stretch of a marathon.

When I was a child I recall watching the marathon runners of the Comrades Marathon in South Africa. The runners started looking excited and energised at the beginning of the race. However, the last hundred metres of the race was often the hardest for many of the runners. I remember witnessing runners limping, crawling and having to carry each other over the finish line, as exhausted and elated tears rolled down their faces. For some of us the month of December can feel like that (not kidding).

Where self-criticism becomes so toxic to us is when it comes to burnout. It may surprise you but many of us are at risk of or already in the grips of burnout.

Burnout is not simply feeling tired or even exhausted. One of the symptoms of burnout that we don’t often talk about is the psychological aspect of burnout. When we are in burnout we become more cynical, we complain more, we resent others more and we become super judgy of ourselves and others.

The Huntress Archetype

The Huntress Archetype is super important to us when it comes to setting and achieving our goals.

Often associated with the Greek Goddess Artemis (Goddess of the hunt), she is the Archetype we embody when we are mission-focused. This is a great resource already within every woman to use for her benefit.

However, when we fall under the influence of her Shadow Archetype the Wounded Warrior this can lead to feeling self-critical, overworked and burnt-out.

The Wounded Warrior is born out of hurt, moments of betrayal to our Maiden Archetype, or when we have failed to meet our commitments to ourselves.

When we are under the influence of the Wounded Warrior Archetype we:

Become so fixated on our goals that we disregard everything else in our lives including our relationships. Are so protective of “our goals” that we forget that we can ask for help or delegate to others and we fall into the behaviour pattern of always being on “the hunt”. Continually strive for the next goal and are never satisfied with our achievements.Are prone to perfectionism and associate our self-worth with how productive we are.

When we are under the spell of Wounded Warrior energy we are constantly in survival mode which is exhausting!

Hello Burnout!!!

How to be kinder and more compassionate towards yourself and overcome toxic self-criticism

Here are some ways that you can balance out some of the Wounded Warrior’s influence over you.

Self-care

Have you noticed feelings of exhaustion and overwhelm when considering your HUGE to-do list?

Or have you noticed your resentment toward others?

Have your noticed yourself judging or criticising yourself more than normal?

Then recognise this as a sign that you are in or at risk of burning out.

This may signify that you may need to remother yourself. You may need to take a big long look at how you can take accountability for your choices and lack of boundaries.

You may need to use the introspection of your Wild Women to reflect on “why” you are doing everything you committed to this time of year.

When you tap into the intuition of your Wise Woman she can help you to decern what is truly important to you and what is unnecessary “stuff” causing you unnecessary stress.

The Queen Archetype and her influence around boundaries can be an extremely valuable resource at this time of year.

Remember you don’t have to please everyone!

Honestly, if it is to the detriment to your mental, emotional and physical health don’t do it.

You can say “No”!

Compassion and empathy for our inner judge and victim

We have three parts of our psyche – the judge (inner critic), the judged (or victim) and the witness.

As I explain in my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains, our witness is our empowered selves.

The witness does not judge. The witness does not take things personally. The witness approaches every situation with empathy, compassion and curiosity. When we practice modalities such as meditation, breathwork, shadow-work or yoga (to name a few) we strengthen our witness thinking.

It is so easy for us to fall into the trap of labelling the judge and the victim parts of ourselves as “bad”. However, these parts are still parts of ourselves. Every time we make these parts “bad” we are doing ourselves harm.

As I mentioned in the chapter Whole Woman in my book:

The Mother and Maiden archetypes can have an unhealthy codependent relationship. It is the nature of Maidens to want to grow up, go on adventures, and to explore their innate curiosity. It is part of a Mother’s nature to over-protect and to want to control. The Maiden feeling the need to be loved and accepted by the Mother and sensing that this love and acceptance will be lost to her if she grows up and changes, in turn, stunts her growth and stays small and obedient to continue to receive the warm glow of approval from the Mother. This occurs in our external relationships with our mother or our daughter(s) and is mirrored in our internal relationship between these two archetypes.

This causes a fracture in our Maiden self. A splitting of our ‘light’ acceptable parts off from our ‘dark’ unlovable attributes and the disconnection from and disowning of our dark self.
Thinking like this only will only cause a war inside of us. Seeing ourselves in these ways leads us down the path to self-loathing, struggle, and suffering. It births a fractured self and creates an alienation from ourselves as we move from our dark to our light as frequently, and as often, as we breathe in and out. We are in a state of constant flux between our positivity and melancholy.

When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains – Tanya Valentin

Healing the dysfunctional Mother/Maiden Archetype relationship

If we would like to avoid falling into this Mother/Maiden dynamic in ourselves it is important for us to, first of all, become aware that this is happening.

Secondly, we need to do the shadow work with the assistance of our Wild Woman Archetype.

I encourage you to inquire into what the needs are of your judge, as well as the needs of your judged parts. Remember these are all parts of you. In my experience, our judge and our victim never act out of ill intent. They often have the same intention for you and can learn important lessons from each other when integrated using the witness.

In my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains I walk you through a powerful shadow work exercise that can help you to integrate these parts. You can buy my book HERE.

Gratitude

Take a moment to recognise yourself and your achievements. Instead of beating yourself up about everything you didn’t achieve, celebrate and give thanks for all the things you did achieve. This is where we can comfort and heal our Maiden Archetype by doing inner child work.

My favourite way to do this is to embody my Mother Archetype. In this exercise, I write a letter to myself as if I was writing to my daughter.

I take a moment to tell myself how proud I am of myself and I list all of my achievements big and small. I then thank myself for not giving up. I compassionately remind myself there is always more time. I reassure myself that whatever I didn’t achieve this year didn’t happen for a reason. If it meant for me will happen at its right time.

If you haven’t tried writing love letters to yourself give it a go.

I promise you, it will change your relationship with yourself for the better!

If you resonated with the Wounded Warrior Archetype and would like to know more about how you can heal this archetype and the other Shadow Archetypes for yourself take my FREE Masterclass series. You can register for this HERE

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5 Stages of Spiritual Awakening

Spiritual Awakenings can be amazingly transformative experiences. They can be the conduit for joy, purpose, greater understanding and creativity. However, they can also be lonely, messy, confusing, depressing, overwhelming and trauma-filled.

“This is terrible,” a friend said to me recently. “I feel emotional all the time!” “I feel as if there is something more that I should be doing with my life, but I don’t know what!” “I just don’t know what to do!”

If you would like to read more about what a spiritual awakening is and whether you are having one read my blog – What Is A Spiritual Awakening?

The Lonely Path

And she wouldn’t be alone. So many women as they navigate from Maidenhood to Motherhood to Midlife go through this rite of passage. Throughout our lives, we are in a constant life-death-life cycle. Mid-life is a potent time of letting go and rebirth as a woman transitions from her Maiden/Mother years and reawakens her Wild Woman.

Girls crystallise their most authentic sense of self sometime between ages of 8 and 10. After that… puberty arrives and girsl can often start to feel the pressure of the female gender role. ‘Puberty requires girls to swap blue jeans for a skirt and independence for the female role’… the process can reverse as menopause, when women have an opportunity to reconnect with the inner girl and reclaim their lost sense of self.”

Lara Briden – Hormone Repair Manual

As we age archetypes such as the Huntress, the Lover, the Wise Woman and the Queen are activated in us and call to be healed and embodied as we birth a new version of ourselves into existence.

This can be an overwhelming, lonely, confusing and terrifying experience for a woman. The women in our ancestral line lived in communities where these life-death-life cycles were witnessed and celebrated. An awakening woman in these communities would have had the support of other women from her tribe as they cooked meals together, created handcrafts and sat around the communal hearth sharing rituals and stories.

However, this is no longer the case. In our western culture, we often only make space for the Maiden and the Mother archetypes. Our Wise, Wild selves are rejected and ostracised. Many women feel these powerful energies swirling around in them but have no one to speak to, no one who will listen.

You may feel as if you are going crazy as if there is something fundamentally wrong or broken in you.

But, you are not alone and you are not broken.

Like the miraculous butterfly, you are simply in the process of a magical transformation.

The Awakening Stages

As an Archetype Mentor, I offer support and guidance to Midlife mums of tweens and teens, who are navigating change. In my book When She Wakes, She Will Move Mountains I take your hand and guide you along your own queen’s journey back to your true self.

Below are the 5 Stages of Awakenings as described in my book.

Read my blog on Archetypes

The Foothills

This is the beginning of the journey (sometimes called the Caterpillar stage). During this stage, you will start to hear the whispers of your Wild Woman Archetype waking up inside you. This activation usually follows a trauma. This can be (but is not limited to) the death of a loved one, a chronic illness, the end of a relationship, a pandemic or the shift in consciousness due to a change in life stage. The pain of staying the same becomes so uncomfortable that you start to question your thoughts, beliefs and agreements.

This is where you begin to awaken to the fact that you are ready for something more. When you are at The Foothills of the journey it is common to feel alive, excited and/or confused, emotional and stuck.

The Cave

The Cave (sometimes call the Cocoon stage) is the descent into the “Special World” where you activate and come face to face with your Wild Woman archetype.

This transformative place is where you discover the healing power of solitude. The Cave is often dark, lonely and uncomfortable, as your Wild Woman – your shadow teacher, helps you to strip back the layers of your cultural programming and other peoples expectations. With the shedding of each layer, you start to see your true self more and more clearly.

The Cave is where you are also reconnected with your Wise Woman archetype. The Wise Woman helps you to integrate your stories and learn their lessons. The Wise Woman balances out her sometimes erratic Wild Woman sister as she gifts you the regeneration of your intuition.

The Boulder Choke

As you journey through The Cave you will come up against areas where you will encounter obstacles and resistance. This could be from forces inside you or outside you. These are areas where you need to excavate and mine for the treasure that is YOU. What was unknown or hidden from you is now brought into the light.

A Boulder Choke is an opportunity for you to meet the shadows of your most dominant feminine archetypes, test your lessons, and your newly reawakened intuition. Your thoughts and emotions are all scrambled during this stage and it can feel futile at times. Your DNA is literally rewiring itself and knitting itself back together in a new way. This takes time and patience so allow yourself to surrender to the journey. The Bolder Choke is where you learn to trust yourself again. We also start activating the self-love and self-nurturing of the Mother and the Lover archetypes.

The Return to The Ordinary World.

As you leave The Cave you are met by your Huntress archetype. The Huntress archetype represents your focus and your independence. It is through the sheer determination of the Huntress that you find the inner strength to ascend the mountain so that you can take your rightful place as the Queen of your life. This is the stage of the Butterfly and a beautiful and liberating stage of the journey. But it can also be overwhelming and confusing as you rediscover who you are. Your priorities may change as you decide what is important to you and what you want to invite into your life.

The Return to The Ordinary World is a time of recalibration. You may find that your relationships change as people in your life are introduced to the ‘new you‘.

We need the Huntress archetype’s strength during this stage of our spiritual awakening. It is through her drive for personal freedom that we learn to stand on our own two feet, make our own decisions, find our voice and start to take responsibility for our own lives.

The Empowered Queen.

This is where at the top of the mountain, we step into our power and sovereignty (dominion of who we truly are). When a woman steps into her Queen is no longer waits to be saved by someone else. Nor does she wait for something outside of her to change in order to have the life that she truly wants. The Queen recognises that she can choose herself, for herself. She gives herself permission to be her own hero. She knows her own worth and accepts and loves herself. The Queen invests in herself and gathers a team of advisors and like-minded Queens around her. She lives her life with intention, purpose and a desire to be of service to others.

Take my FREE Archetype Quiz and find out what your most dominant Feminine Archetype is.

Who is Your True Self That You Are Waking Up To Be?

A Spiritual Awakening can be a painful, uncomfortable process. However, it is also an exciting freeing time in a woman’s life as we get to meet the person we were truly meant to be and open up to what we were meant to do. Many women after their Awakening have found new-found meaning in life, changed careers and studied. Some women have embraced travel and gone on adventures, started new fulfilling hobbies and or become part of new communities of people.

Are you looking to Belong to a Community of Women who think the same, feel the same and are going through similar experiences as you? Join my FREE Women’s Archetype Community and Enjoy Monthly New Moon Women’s Circles and Monthly Archetype Masterclasses!

She is still there. The person you were before you became a mum, a wife, a partner. That person still matters.

We do not become healers. We came as healers. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become storytellers. We came as carriers of the stories we and our ancestors actually lived. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become artists. We came as artists. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not become writers.. dancers.. musicians.. helpers.. peacemakers. We came as such. We are. Some of us are still catching up to what we are.

We do not learn to love in this sense. We came as Love. We are Love. Some of us are still catching up to who we truly are.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Over to You

Are you on an Awakening Journey?

What has the experience been for you?

What stage are you in your awakening?

Please let me know in the comments below.

As an Archetype Mentor, I help Midlife Mums of tweens and teens who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a Mum can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Would you like some support and guidance along your awakening journey? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

The post 5 Stages of Spiritual Awakening appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

What To Do When Your Teen Is Struggling Emotionally?

Last week was hard…

If you are a mum, you will know that one of the most challenging things in life is navigating your teen’s strong emotions. And I had one of those weeks.

Have you ever experienced this? I am sure you have…

A week that is a continuous emotional rollercoaster…

One emotional outburst after another.

Constant tears.

A week where all that you can do as a mum is strap yourself in and hang on for dear life, hoping that you and your teen will all get out the other end in one piece!

Why your teen’s emotions so challenging for you as a mother?

Firstly, your teen’s emotions can be incredibly triggering.

In his short instructional video on the hand model of the brain, Dr Daniel Siegel, explains how the neo-cortex of the brain (the rational thinking bit) disengages from the limbic system during an emotional upheaval. He calls this “flipping your lid”. When we “flip our lid” we lose the ability to think objectively due to the stimulation of our amygdala which controls our fight, flight or freeze reactions. When two people are in conversation with each other and one person “flips their lid” it can very easily trigger the other person to flip theirs too. I am sure that you have experienced these many times.

You can access this short video HERE.

Secondly, no mother (or parent for that matter) likes to see their child, upset or in emotional distress. This can be emotionally challenging for parents on so many levels.

Here are some of the reasons why this could be difficult for you:

Your teen’s emotions can activate an unhealed wound in you

We all carry around unresolved hurt and wound to our Maiden, from our experiences in the past. Many of these unhealed wounds happened to us when we were a child or a teen. When you witness your child struggling with a similar experience this can cause you to relive your past experience as if it is happening to you all over again.

Your teen’s emotions can trigger your emotions about emotions

Another wounding to our Maiden is how we were taught to deal with emotions or your meta-emotions philosophy. This is an example of a “mother wound”, a generational conditioning or trauma that has been passed down to us by our mother and the mothers before her.

Think back to how your mother dealt with emotions such as fear, anger, sadness, anxiety?

How has this influenced how you respond to your own child’s emotions?

Your child’s experience of these emotions is an opportunity to heal this wound for yourself so that you don’t pass this to your daughters and sons.

Your teen’s emotions can set off your feelings of inadequacy as a parent

When we see how upset our child is, this can cause us to feel as if this is somehow our fault. This can trigger your emotions of shame and thoughts that you are somehow “not good enough” as a parent.

This is yet another “mother wound” and a shadow of the Mother Archetype. The wounded mother feels the need to fix, control and take everyone else’s problems on as if they are her own.

Let me get something straight here.

As a mother, it is not your job to fix all your children’s problems – it is impossible!Emotions (even hard ones) are part of the human experience. Emotions are merely information about our needs.Experiencing emotions will not harm your child.Your child’s emotional outburst does not make you a bad parent.The temptation to “fix”

I know that I am not alone in this, it is a very natural thing for us as Mums to want to solve problems, or to “fix things” for our children. For many of us, this sense of helplessness can set off our own emotions of frustration, anxiety, fear, shame and even anger.

My magical powers of being able to “kiss it better” left along with my daughters’ belief in the tooth fairy.

I can’t solve my seventeen-year-old daughter’s anxiety about what a post-Covid world will look like. Or her fear about the melting of the polar ice caps and global warming.

I can’t go to my thirteen-year-old daughter’s school and stop the other kids from picking on her.

All of this sucks!

And…

What I have learnt during my parenting journey, and my research as a teacher is that if we head straight for the “solve” this can actually communicate to our children that we are dismissing or minimising their emotional experience. This can lead them to believe that we don’t understand them or even that we don’t care.

What to do instead?Empathy

One thing that I have learnt over the years is the importance of empathy – to be able to relate to another’s emotional experience.

Often, we forget that we have a different perspective of life to our children. We are a product of our experiences, and my forty-six years of experience can cause me to see the world quite differently from my teenage daughters. Things that might be trivial to me can seem like the end of the world to them.

The key thing here is to try to relate to the emotional experience.

Ask yourself, “what would be a similar experience in my own life?” and then use this emotional context to relate to your child. Important point: Do not relate this experience to your teen and make this moment all about you. Use this experience as an opportunity to locate your emotional perspective.

Acknowledge and validate your teen’s emotions

All feelings are valid and okay, and it is important that you communicate this to your teen. (When we make emotions bad this causes our children to believe that there are parts of them that are bad and unlovable.)

You may not agree with your child’s point of view or behaviour but focus on the emotions – all emotions are normal, healthy, and okay.

I know that this is challenging. We don’t tend to do very well at acknowledging emotions.

Most of us can’t even do this for ourselves and so doing this for others can seem unnatural. We may fear that our teens will “milk” the situation or make this period of discomfort last longer if we acknowledge the emotion they are feeling. You may feel tempted to distract them from what they are feeling, change the subject, reassure them or tell them how grateful they should be, as you have been led to believe that this will move them out of what they are going through quicker.

However, when you practise empathy and validate emotions you communicate that you understand what your child is going through, that you get them. This allows them to recover more quickly from and emotional upheaval.

We either spend the time meeting our children’s emotional needs by filling their cup with love or we spend time dealing with the behaviours from their unmet needs. Either way we spend the time.

Pam Leo

Having empathy with your child’s emotions ultimately allows you to build a stronger connection with them. These interactions and connection create a secure foundation that allows them to develop important emotional intelligence and resilience skills.

Holding space and sitting with emotions

One of the most challenging parts of this approach for me has been learning to “hold space” for my daughters and to support them to sit with their emotions.

I am a recovering “fixer” and so this approach can at times feel like I’m not “doing” anything.

Holding space means that we are willing to simply be there with another person in whatever they are feeling without judging them, making them feel inadequate, trying to fix them, or trying to impact the outcome.

This means curbing comments, withholding sage advice, and our need to rescue them from their feelings. When we hold space for our children, we open our hearts, offer unconditional support, and let go of judgement and control.

Tanya Valentin

Sometimes holding space looks a lot like “sitting on your hands”, zipping your lip, controlling your breathing and keeping your own lid down while your child loses theirs.

Not easy – it takes practice!

However, if you can sit through the discomfort here is what you will have conveyed to your child:

I’ve got you! Even though your world feels out of control and overwhelming, you can rely on me to be your safety in this storm.As horrible as these emotions feel they will pass – let me sit with you until they do.I will listen to you without judgement – I love you without limit, even your dark, your sad, your angry. All parts of you are accepted and loved by me.Taking care of the mother

One closing consideration and yet another “mother wound” is our tendency as mums to lack boundaries and to over-give until we become completely “selfless”.

During times of the heightened emotions of our children, we can become so consumed by what they are going through and so preoccupied with being there for them that we can forget to take care of ourselves.

When we are under the influence of the “Selfless Mother” archetype we can easily empty our own cup trying to fill the cup of others. Our “empty” selves can become resentful and just one trigger away for a “flipped lid”.

This depletion of our reserves makes it difficult for us to empathise, validate feelings and hold space for our children and we are way more likely to reach for the “fix”.

Remember – Good self-care equals an engaged lid.

So, what can you do to ensure that you are meeting your own needs?

If you would like some simple self-care hacks that will help you to stay sane click HERE for my FREE PDF.

As an Archetype Mentor, I help Midlife Mums of tween and teen girls who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a Mum can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Do you want more tools to heal your mother wound? 

Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

Are you looking to Belong to a Community of Women who think the same, feel the same and are going through similar experiences as you? Join my FREE Women’s Archetype Community and Enjoy Monthly New Moon Women’s Circles and Monthly Archetype Masterclasses!

The post What To Do When Your Teen Is Struggling Emotionally? appeared first on Tanya Valentin.

Is it a Midlife Crisis or a Spiritual Awakening?

One of the top questions I get asked about my book or podcast is, “What is a Spiritual Awakening and how do I know if I am having one?”

This is often followed by, “What is the difference between a Spiritual Awakening and a Midlife Crisis?”

And so I thought that I would write a blog to answer these questions.

Disclaimer: The information provided in this blog is entirely from my experience. I am respectful of other people’s truths and experiences about spirituality.

What is a Spiritual Awakening?

Many people upon hearing the word “Spiritual Awakening” conjure up images of Buddhist monks, psychics or witchy types. They may think that a spiritual awakening is reserved for a select group of people such as people who are devoutly religious. However, regardless of our religious beliefs, we are all capable of and do experience awakenings at various stages of our lives.

According to the author and Toltec teacher, Don Miguel Ruiz,

“As children we didn’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs, but we agreed with the information that was passed to us from the dream of the planet via other humans.  The only way to store information is by agreement.  The outside dream may hook our attention, but if we don’t agree we don’t store the information.  As soon as we agree we believe and this is called faith. To have faith is to believe unconditionally.  That’s how we learn as children.  Children believe everything adults say.  We agree with them, and our faith is so strong that the belief system controls the whole dream of life.”

Don Miguel Ruiz

Spiritual Awakening refers to the process of “waking” from the humdrum dream of the planet. This causes us to step back, reflect on and re-evaluate the agreements that we have agreed to and our sense of being in the world. This process is sometimes referred to as returning to your true self or developing a higher state of consciousness. Spiritual Growth refers to the process of shedding the layers of beliefs, thoughts and agreements inherited from our cultural programming. It entails becoming more conscious of our inner spiritual being and our place in the wider universe.

What is Spirituality?

Many people confuse spirituality and religion.

Religion is a prescribed set of organised beliefs and practices usually practised by a group or a community of people.

Spirituality is about yourself. It is about your relationship with yourself, your sense of peace, purpose and how you fit into the wider universe.

Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning, and purpose to our lives.

Brene Brown

What Causes a Spiritual Awakening?

Spiritual awakenings can happen to us at various stages of our lives. Awakenings are often triggered by life-altering traumas such as pandemics, the death of a loved one, our children leaving home or losing our job.

Our awakening may also be triggered by something completely mundane or by a life stage. This is often why spiritual awakenings are often attributed to the term “mid-life crisis”. For many women (and men), the changes to our brains, bodies and hormones that occur in our middle years can activate a powerful awakening. This is why the two are often associated with each other.

I do, however, believe that we are offered natural invitations throughout our lifespan that trigger us to pause, evaluate, change our previously held beliefs, thoughts and behaviours and evolve to a higher state of consciousness. Life is a constant flow of discovery, creation and unfolding. We are constantly awakening to new parts of who are as we let go of old versions of ourselves that no longer serve us.

Awakening Invitations Could Include:Early Childhood – This is a period where a baby recognises that they are a separate person to their parents. They test the boundaries of who they are and how they fit in the world. This is an important time in a person’s life as this shapes our identity, our belief system, and our sense of self-worth.Teenagerhood – The shift to the stage of adolescence causes us to see our parents as fallible human beings. During this stage of our lives our peers become vitally important to us as we are challenged to think about how we fit in our wider culture. This is a confusing, hormone-fuelled and emotion-filled time of shedding old beliefs, exerting our independence and reinventing who we are. Early Adulthood – During this stage of our lives we begin to recognise that we are responsible for our own lives and decisions and we start a process of defining who we are as individuals outside of our family of origin.Parenthood – The activation of our Mother archetype is yet another stage of transition as we shift our perception from being egocentric to caring for our young children. Many women start to question their identity as we start to identify with the struggles of our parents. We might question the how we were parented and develop new beliefs and strategies for mothering our children, which are different to how our parents did it. Motherhood is often a call for us to heal old wounds from our childhood and to mother ourselves.Midlife – As our children start to pull away and enter their teenage years, our focus shifts back to ourselves. This “second puberty” is a powerful invitation to us to shed the weight of other’s expectations and allow ourselves to meet our own needs. Many women feel a deep yearning to return to their true selves – the self they were before they were a parent. We can become filled with a sense of urgency as we start to pay attention to our natural biological clock and cycles. Midlife is a stage of reinvention. We may change careers, pursue new interests, spiritual practices, and passions or rediscover long forgotten ones. Our relationships may experience a shake-up as we demand more out of our connections with others. Midlife is a time when we explore our existence, purpose, and the meaning of life (you know the simple stuff). It is also a time of emotional upheaval as we grieve past versions of ourselves or say farewell to versions of ourselves that we will never be. Elderly Years – As we advance in years, we can experience a change in priorities. Things that seemed so important to our younger selves don’t seem to matter as much. Our Wise Woman archetype integrates our stories, and we start to see the value of our hard-won life lessons.

CLICK HERE To access my FREE Women’s Archetype Wisdom Online Course.

Signs That You May be Experiencing a Spiritual Awakening

Here are some of the signs that you may be on an Awakening journey.

You feel stuck, emotional, depressed, dissatisfied, confused, overwhelmed and detached as you reflect on, challenge and re-evaluate old agreements, beliefs and priorities.Your relationships with yourself and others start to change and you start to recognise when others are being inauthentic or trying to control you.You develop a stonger sense of self-worth and you are becoming more comfortable with creating and maintaining boundaries.You are becoming less concerned with what others think of you.You start to shift from feeling as if life is happening “to you” to life is happening “for you”.You experience vivid dreams, synchronicities and de ja vu.You have a newfound curiosity and become more interested in spirituality.You start to experience “downloads” of inspiration and creativity.You become more intuitive and you start to trust yourself and your decisions more.You have empathy and compassion for others and their suffering and you recognise that everyone is on their own path.You feel a pull to experience more time outdoors and out in nature.You seek out solitude and start to become more comfortable with your own company.You feel the awakening of psychic gifts in you.You feel alone and wonder if you are the only one if feels as you do, or sees life the way that you do.You have physical symptoms such as heightened senses, sleep disturbances or bodily sensations.You develop a new world view and start to see how we are all connected.You want to be of service to others.

To read about the 5 stages of spiritual awakening please click HERE.

Over to You

Have you experienced or are you in the process of a Spiritual Awakening?

What has the experience been like for you?

Did you or are you experience any of the signs listed above?

Please let me know in the comments below.

As an Archetype Mentor, I help Midlife Mums of tween and teen girls who are navigating change in their lives. So that you as a Mum can have more choice, freedom and possibilities to create the life that YOU want.

Feeling stuck and overwhelmed? Buy My Book When She Wakes She Will Move Mountains – 5 Steps to Reconnecting With Your Wild Authentic Inner Queen.

Are you looking to Belong to a Community of Women who think the same, feel the same and are going through similar experiences as you? Join my FREE Women’s Archetype Community and Enjoy Monthly New Moon Women’s Circles and Monthly Archetype Masterclasses!

If you would like to share your Awakening story with others please contact me to be a guest on my podcast.

The post Is it a Midlife Crisis or a Spiritual Awakening? appeared first on Tanya Valentin.